good morning, i'm richard lui in for chris jansing, president obama taking a commanding lead in head-to-head polls. 52% say the president understands there are economic problems, just 37% answered romney. in an interview with matt lauer, the president insisted he can bring the economic recovery to the next level. >> but what we have been able to do is move in the right direction. and what i'm just going to keep on doing is plodding away, very persistent, and you know what? one of the things about being president is you get better as time goes on. >> all right, jonathan alter is a bloomberg view columnist. ben smith is editor and chief. thank you to you both. good economic news on friday,

the 8. 3%. and as we move forward, do you see romney losing one of the major points he could make during the general? >> yeah, the early signs of real recovery mean that the debate has changed a little. it's not who we blame for the economy. you're starting to see romney make the case, don't believe those numbers, there are other numbers, the real case is 15%. >> as we look at the real numbers made over the last couple of days or so. now, jonathan, the other interesting er the poll we're just bringing up, do you think president obama deserves a second term? 49% saying yes, 49% saying no. and in fact, here's what president obama said on this issue. take a listen. >> i deserve a second term, but we're not done. when you and i sat down, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. in fact, we had found out just a few days before we sat down we had lost that month 750,000

jobs, now we're creating 250,000. we've created 3.7 million jobs over the last 23 months. we've created the most jobs since 2005, the most manufacturing jobs since 1990. but we're not finished. >> jonathan, will that argument stick? >> well, just depends on what the numbers are. we're going to see every month there's going to be a friday when the new jobs figures from the prior month come out. and now the bar's been set at about 250,000. if they come in lower and these numbers often go up and down seasonally, that's not necessarily going to play so well for the president. so it would be a big mistake for the democrats to get cocky about this election. >> some say 150's the number. >> nate silver said 150's the number. the statisticians and the economists, you know the old line. you can lay all the economists in the world end to end and they won't reach a conclusion, you've got the congressional budget office that says there's going

to be a terrible third quarter where the economy's going to go down, which would have serious implications for the president's reelection. we don't know whether the cbo is right. we don't know whether the trend line will continue. this is an unfinished story. it is very early in this presidential election. >> and it's also not as much about perceptions as it is about numbers. at a moment where in retrospect was the beginning of a great boom. so in this media cycle very different from that one, it's hard to know how people will react to the changes and economic numbers and their own lives and where people feel this is a recovery. >> let's switch over to mitt romney and the race, and the results over the weekend. jonathan, as you know, he is the front-runner, but isn't quite there yet. here's what newt gingrich had to say on "meet the press." >> our goal is to get to super

tuesday where we're in much more favorable territory. you'll note in florida where i was outspent 5-1, we carried all the panhandle area, we carried more counties than he did. so we want to get to georgia, alabama, tennessee, we want to get to states, texas. we believe by the time texas is over, we'll be very, very competitive in delegate count. >> he was also saying that on saturday. they got down, laid out the plan through super tuesday. does he have a shot? >> well, i think he's going to be the jerry brown of this campaign. let me explain what i mean by that. in two different presidential elections, in 1976 when jim mmy carter was nominated and became president and 1992 when bill clinton was nominated by the democrats and became president. and both of those campaigns, jerry brown, the former governor and now governor again of california was nipping at carter and then clint's hee clinton's winning some late primaries.

and you'll see the same thing with gingrich where he might win in some places but not going to have enough to get the nomination. the effect he will have will be to make mitt romney seem more moderate by comparison. every time -- >> that's what you wrote -- >> yeah, every time he calls mitt romney a massachusetts moderate, that helps romney's message in the general election campaign. so all of this talk about how gingrich in the race is bad for the republicans i think is completely wrong. >> very quickly ben to you. if gingrich doesn't get out, when he does make that decision to get out? >> well, i think he's -- i don't know, lincoln/douglass style debates. >> i'd love to see those. >> i think we're kind of getting beyond cabinet appointment. >> certainly, ben, thank you so much. jonathan, as well. let's bring in our good friend mark murray, our nbc news political director to take a look at the candidate strategy. tomorrow as you know, we've got

76 delegates voted on in a single day. that's the most so far in a single day. looking at colorado and minnesota. let's start with colorado. what do you think here, mark? romney should top 50%. he did really well in 2008. is the strategy all anti-obama here, though? >> it's -- that certainly has been mitt romney's message coming out of the florida primary that he won. mitt romney today is in colorado. he won colorado four years ago. he should be the favorite. but richard, one thing that's interesting about both colorado and minnesota, they give the newt gingriches, the ron pauls, the rick santorums an opportunity to pull off an upset to destroy the narrative that february's going to be an easy month for romney camp. good organization could change -- could provide for an upset for tomorrow. >> talk about minnesota. does it look like a toss-up there? >> the way that the mitt romney campaign is responding seems to be that rick santorum might be giving them a run for the money.

we just saw a press release coming from the romney campaign hitting rick santorum. that doesn't happen all that often. rick santorum is actually concentrated a little bit more on minnesota, just be able to pull off the upset there. again, minnesota could be a state that could provide an upset, you know, look, romney also won minnesota four years ago, he is the favorite here, but we're going to be watching these two contests tomorrow to see any upset might occur. >> are you going to be watching missouri? a beauty contest there and why is it a beauty contest, for one, and for two, rick santorum, he's been spending time there. >> right, richard, it is a beauty contest, no delegates are up for grabs, the delegates for missouri will be decided at a later date. it's a beauty contest meaning the winner gets his or her name announced as a winner of missouri. it has no bearing on the race whatsoever. as you mentioned a super pac supporting rick santorum has been airing advertisements in missouri hoping he would be the

winner of this beauty contest. >> mark murray, thank you as always as we look forward to tomorrow. there's been a tragic turn we've been watching. news coming out of syria. and the united states issuing a new travel alert. warning americans against traveling to syria, also suspending embassy operations in damascus. syria is under fire, as well. human rights groups saying syrian troops have killed at least 17 in the flash point city there. this latest deadly bombardment comes on the heels of the weekend strike, which killed about 200 people. meanwhile, egypt's military-led government plans to put 19 americans on trial for allegedly using foreign funds to create unrest in that country. riots continue to break out in cairo. now, the latest from cairo. and eamon, what's the case against these 19 americans?

>> reporter: good morning, richard. well, you know, the general prosecutor is expected to indict them on wednesday here in the country. referring to a criminal court. a crime under egyptian law and channelling that money to political activity in the country, particularly to anti-government protests. they believe a lot of the protests that are taking place in the country are fueled by organizations and groups that are working against the egyptian government, but more importantly, they are receiving these funds from outside. we know among the 43 people charged, 19 americans, 6 of them in the country, 13 of them believed to have left at some point prior to the investigation or the travel ban. that case is expected to begin underway on wednesday when the criminal indictment is presented to a judge. >> also in the region, syria, what are you hearing about that? >> the situation there remains very precarious. and as you mentioned, the u.s. embassy has shut down -- or the

u.s. state department has shut down, the embassy has evacuated all personnel. referring all american citizens to defer to the polish embassy. there was a deadly attack on the city of homs that activists say killed more than 200 people. there is still no diplomatic consensus as to how to solve the situation over the weekend at the united nations. there was a u.n. resolution that was vetoed by russia and china. that was welcomed by the syrian government, but now the free syrian army says the only way to go ahead with these protests is to use military force against the governments. certainly the situation continues to deteriorate by the day. richard? >> ayman, thank you so much. there's been a tragic turn in the case of a young utah woman who disappeared more than two years ago. police in washington state say that her husband josh powell intentionally set off a fiery explosion inside his home killing himself and his two little boys.

>> reporter: richard, good morning. police are calling this burned down home a crime scene. they're calling it a double murder/suicide put into motion by josh powell. it happened a few days after a judge denied powell custody of his children. and it came moments after he sent an ominous e-mail to lawyers and friends with three words. it read, "i'm sorry. good-bye." the house went up in flames moments after powell's two young sons arrived for their visit with a social worker. the aftermath recorded in this home video. firefighters put out the blaze but had no chance to save 7-year-old charlie and 5-year-old braeden. the powells' two young boys. >> we believe this was intentionally planned. looked like there was accelerants used. >> reporter: they believe he let the boys inside, blocked the social worker from entering,

slamming the door in her face. she called the supervisor, said she smelled gas in the home. moments later an intense fast-burning fire raged. >> it was definitely a gas boom. >> reporter: neighbors didn't know josh powell was living here. >> why couldn't he do that to himself? why would he have to take those babies with him? >> reporter: in september, powell lost custody of his sons, a month after the arrest of his father, steven powell on charges of voyeurism and possessing child pornography. the family had been living together in steven's home where police say they also found elicit pictures of susan cox powell, steven's daughter-in-law, the photos taken years earlier without her knowledge. >> i am a fit and qualified father. i have had nothing to do with any kind of illegal pornography. >> despite powell's emotional appeal to a judge, the boys were placed in the care of his missing wife's parents, chuck and judy cox. too distraught to be interviewed

sunday. in a statement the cox family said, words cannot adequately express the grief. first, susan, and now charlie and braden. josh powell always denied any involvement in his wife's disappearance. he was called a person of interest but never charged with a crime. susan cox powell vanished in december 2009, the same night josh told police he took his boys on a late-night camping trip in freezing temperatures. her body has never been found. >> i could never hurt susan or my sons. >> but according to police, powell did exactly that, killing his children, two innocent boys whose short lives had already been filled with such incredible loss. >> this was something evil. this was not a tragedy. this was a horrible murder of two little kids. >> reporter: the attorney for the cox family has gone on record saying that the boys are "verbalizing more about the night their mother disappeared."

the oldest son said their mother was quote in the trunk of the car and that their father and mother disappeared and their mother never came back. as for the e-mail with the three words "i'm sorry, good-bye," police say it indicates clearly this was a double murder/suicide. >> thank you so much there in washington for us. the new york giants have been super bowl champs now for just over 12 hours. already there are potentially millions of fans planning to descend on the new york's canyon of heroes for major ticker tape parade tomorrow. in 2008, about 3 million fans came to celebrate with eli and the rest. and this time, there could be even more. big blue will be given a key to the city by mayor mike bloomberg. uh oh. should we be letting him p-l-a-y with our t-a-b-l-e-t? [ mom ] i think it's fine. it's the new element from at&t so it's w-a-t-e-r proof. cool. what else does it d-o?

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diffusing budget bombs, ezra klein writes a series of budget bombs, fiscal bombs are set to go off in the coming months, including the payroll tax cut, the bush tax cuts, and like a scene out of "mission impossible," congress trying to find out how to save the day. ezra, you write here that these are some serious problems, questions to be answered in the coming months. what happens, though? you describe a drag on our economy because we're debating these. >> that would be i should say the worst "mission impossible" ever. just sitting around. so what we have -- it's a funny thing, i think people think it's the opposite. we have a law, the laws that are currently on the books are -- would essentially get rid of the national deficit. they would eliminate it, but they would destroy growth at the same time. so the big players here are if we do nothing, if congress can't come to an agreement and as we all know, congress is excellent

at not coming to an agreement. if they can't come to an agreement, the payroll tax cut expires, the unemployment insurance expansion expires, the bush tax cuts expire for a tax increase of $4 trillion. the trigger goes off in 2013 for spending cuts of $1.2 trillion. all of this is sucking demand out of the economy, sucking government spending and increasing taxes in an economy that's recovering slowly. so the congressional budget office in a report released a week ago said if all of that happens in 2013, growth will be 1.1%, and that would be horrible. so it's good and bad. >> which scenario then is better off for us? we could sacrifice that growth but as you said we would bring down the deficit. >> yeah, let me say it's bad and bad. deficit reduction is not good at all times. sometimes it's the wrong thing to do. and we're at one of those moments right now. the right thing to do as almost any economist would tell you, you put in place a plan that begins in a couple of years when the economy is stronger. you pass somewhere along the

lines simpson/bowles beginning in 2014, until then you protect the recovery. it's been clear this is a compromise we should have. more stimulus growth now, infrastructure spending would be a very, very smart way to go because it would help us get a better economy in the future. and you lock in deficit reduction for the ten years after that. >> bad, bad, you're not ledding congress off the hook here. they've got to do something. the gop split on many of these issues you brought up. do they lose either way here? >> the gop will -- it depends, in a very, very crude way if the economy does poorly, they're probably going to benefit from that because voters will blame president obama. so in a way, they don't. but as we saw with the payroll tax cut, if it's so clear that the economy's doing poorly because they let legislation that should not have expired expire, they're very afraid of being blamed for that. one things like eric cantor and boehner are thinking about, how much do they do to protect their own majority as opposed to simply blocking everything and getting blamed for being

obstructionists when the american people see we have a recovery beginning and it's time for government to make sure we get over the finish line this time. >> so president obama as he goes for the reelection campaign, how important is this sort of gop catch 22 for him getting reelected? >> it's important, but again, i don't know if it's yet a catch-22, i think there's going to be an interesting amount of strategy between mitt romney and the republicans. remember that though the republicans are probably going to expand the -- extend the payroll tax cut, they have managed to block every single element of the american jobs act. so the expanded payroll tax cut, the infrastructure bill, the expanded unemployment insurance, the aid to state and local businesses. the idea that simply doing the payroll tax is a big victory for the president i think is somewhat misguided. the american jobs act would have been effective in pushing the economy forward at a faster rate and the gop has been fairly effective at taking pretty much entirely off of the table. in that way, they've scored maybe not -- i don't think they see it in a cynical way of bringing down the economy, i

think it has hurt president obama's chances simply by getting that off of the agenda. >> as always, thanks, man. now to an explosive new book that reveals details of an alleged 18-month affair with a former president. nene alfred is the former white house intern to jfk. she wrote the book "once upon an affair." on sale wednesday, the book reportedly details the most intimate moments of their relationship. the 69-year-old grandmother was outed by historian in 2003 and refused to talk about it at that time. progresso. it fits! fantastic! [ man ] pro-gresso they fit! okay-y... okay??? i've been eating progresso and now my favorite old jeans...fit. okay is there a woman i can talk to? [ male announcer ] progresso. 40 soups 100 calories or less. nyquil tylenol: we are?ylenol. you know we're kinda like twins. okay is there a woman i can talk to? nyquil (stuffy): yeah, we both relieve coughs, sneezing, aches, fevers.

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this is pretty cool, after winning the super bowl, the giants will get to meet president obama at the white house. meanwhile, the patriots will get to meet newt gingrich at the waffle house, which is interesting. >> that was jimmy fallon after last night's big super bowl win by the giants. the best and worst super bowl ads, by the way, who got the best bang for their buck? we've got that in about eight minutes. there are new questions this morning about who we don't know that is behind the millions of dollars in donations to campaign super pacs. nbc news national investigative correspondent michael issicoff has been looking into this. there are those not being released. let's start with carl rove's

american crossroads raised $51 million last year, but only $18 million has been disclosed, and the question is, where is the rest coming from? >> exactly, all of that attention last week to the super pac filings showing the billionaire donors who were contributing $1 million and more to some of these super pacs. >> right. >> but that's only what we see. the fact is the big super pac operations and american crossroads is probably the biggest, also have what we call 501c4 components, nonprofit components that are raising money entirely in secret, not disclosed to the public. now, the explanation for this is, well, these are nonprofit, tax exempt, they don't have to and they're not engaged in the same sort of political attack ads. but let's take that crossroads example. you have american crossroads, which is the public component,

$18 million, including $7 million from one texas billionaire harold simmons, and then you have the crossroads gps, the nonprofit running attack ads on obama, on solyndra, and other what they call insider deals. none of it disclosed. >> and this is legal and they're linked? >> and they're legal and they're linked. now, this is not just on the republican side. you also have a smaller variant on the democratic side. priorities usa action, which is the pro-obama super pac. they reported $4.4 million last week, but say they've raised $6.7 million. where's the rest of the money? coming through their nonprofit nondisclosing component. priorities usa, priorities usa

action is the public one, priorities usa itself is the secret money component. >> so, so -- there's a black hole there, a bigger one on the gop side. is there anything being done to close this up so that we do have that sort of transparency? >> no, the s.e.c. has made a meager attempt writing a letter to crossroads saying, look, we want you to report and disclose the 501 -- the nonprofit secret money arm and crossroads has simply said noway, we're not going to do it and they believe as a result of the supreme court and other judicial rulings they're on firm legal ground without an aggressive s.e.c., it's unlikely there'll be anything done about this. this is one of the big criticisms from watchdog groups saying, look, this post united citizens united era has opened up a wash of secret money that's flowing -- >> we don't know where it's going to start or end. >> we don't know where it's coming from. >> i want to sneak this in,

michael. when we look at shelly adelson, hedging his bets, we're hearing, with the gop nominee and who might be that. also if you could, talk about super pac monday for tomorrow's two races when we look at colorado and minnesota. >> first of all, clearly the romney super pac, restore our future has lots of cash on hand that they can use for more attack ads against newt gingrich. they've reported raising $30 million. through the end of last year, they've spent about $17 million in independent expenditures, almost all entirely on anti-gingrich attack ads. that's a pretty good indication they've got plenty of cash, more ammunition to keep throwing at gingrich in the upcoming primaries. on the adelson point, that's significant. we know he's thrown $10 million into the gingrich super pac, but now it's emerged that he's also sent word to romney and even talked to romney, he'll be there

in the fall if romney's the nominee to pour even more money into helping defeat obama and elect romney. most of that is likely to go to operations like crossroads and its nonprofit secret money components. we may not know how much money sheldon adelson pours into this race. >> it's very early in this race. now to a big exclusive roll call this morning, that congressman and presidential candidate ron paul was reimbursed twice for flights between washington, d.c. and texas, a claim his office denies. roll call broke that story for us and jonathan, what did you find? >> good morning. well, we found a number of instances in which flights that ron paul took between his congressional office and washington, d.c. were actually reimbursed two times. and once by his campaign, several other organizations that he controls, and a second time

by taxpayers from his house office budget. >> how much are we talking about? >> well, there's a little bit of a difference here in the examples that we have, you know, conclusive proof for and then a larger universal flights we have evidence for, but the information's not as complete. but the -- the instances which we have evidence for we're talking about dozens of flights. >> thousands, hundreds of dollars? what's the amount you're looking at? >> yeah, thousands of dollars because each flight is about, you know, $600, and the years we're talking about. in those cases he would get, you know, the credit card would be paid off by the campaign and the house would send a second check to him. >> nbc has not independently verified this information. jonathan, you're the one that's breaking this. his office insisting these claims according to what we're hearing at the moment are false and we reached out to them and did not get a response. they did tell you this saying "absolutely zero taxpayer funds were ever misused."

and it's possible that wholly inadvertent errors were made in a handful of instances. you do say this in your article, the paul campaign is alleging you stole some of these records. tell us, how did you get your hands on this information? >> right, right. actually they're saying, you know, these records are stolen, not that we actually stole them. what we obtained were a series of credit card statements for the american express card on which the plane tickets were purchased. and those show the individual plane ticket and then were able to match up those expenditures -- >> where did you get them? >> well, a source provided those documents to us. >> okay. now, paul, as you know is a strong advocate of cutting government spending as well as overall smaller government. and when you have a story like this, you know what the implications might be and how this might hurt his image. >> well, you're right. this is a person who has crusaded for his entire career to end wasteful government spending.

it's very surprising that this would happen given his public reputation. >> all right. thank you very much. that story that came out this morning. i appreciate you sharing that with us. >> thank you. here's a look at other stories that people are talking about right now. president obama insisting that united states and israel are hoping for that diplomatic solution in the iran nukes crisis in an exclusive interview with matt lauer, the president says israel is undecided about attacking iranian nuclear sites. >> i don't think that israel has made a decision on what they need to do. i think they like us believe that iran has to stand out on its nuclear weapons program. and we have mobilized the international community in a way that is unprecedented. and they are feeling the pinch. >> now, his comments come after world leaders expressed concern over a possible israeli attack. this morning, the philippines' island of negros is dealing with aftershocks, that's

making it hard for rescuers to get those trapped under rubble. the 6.8 magnitude earthquake has killed at least 13 people. some of the dead were students at a college and an elementary school. police have been sent to the area to help in that rescue. jury selection begins in the murder trial of virginia lacrosse player. she was found dead in a pool of blood two years ago. police arrested her ex-boyfriend george fugley. in a rare audiotape of malcolm x's address at brown university has been found by one of the college students. he stumbled across the recording gathering dust in the university archives. no one had listened to the speech in more than 50 years. and right here at nbc when we're not busy reporting the news or making shows, we're making music videos. yeah, your favorite nbc stars

all together as you've never seen them before as we go down to the wire in about 15 minutes. on tune, hopefully. there's lots of buzz after the thrilling end to super bowl xlvi. and not just talking about the giants' heart-pounding victory over the patriots, those tv ads at $3.5 million a pop generated a lot of talk. here with a super bowl ad watch edition of "what's moving your money." darren, they were pretty good this year overall. and you've ranked the top five for us, starting with number five and number four. >> right, and it's not necessarily, richard, me ranking them, it's the cnbc collective intellect ranking that takes 11 million tweets and other things in social media. number five was the avengers ad, the marvel ad. i think people just liked this ad in general. it's kind of weird for a movie, but it could rank up like this. but it certainly did. and then at number four, we had

the skechers ad, the dog, mr. reque quigley. a guy who told me he wasn't paid for this spot. so that was five and four. >> so i think the "avengers" reminds of us all of when we're kids and reading those comic books. >> yeah, i guess so. >> number three and number two, you've got chevy's end of the world ad. >> yeah, this was not only like the end of the world, what happened if it ended, it included a spot for twinkies in there, because obviously when there is armageddon, twinkies would survive. and they made a joke about how their friend didn't make it because he was driving a ford. i i thought that was a little bit shocking. >> i was too. you had the pepsi and coke thing where the pepsi guy's trying to get a coke -- but this is a little bit invoked death -- >> that was a good one. i did like the coke one. >> and number two, the consumer

spots keep doing really well. doritos consumer spot made by a guy named john friedman who won $1 million because this was the best super bowl ad according to "usa today" where a dog writes the note, writes a note on the doritos, don't tell, and he doesn't tell. i mean, that was -- >> this is good one. and they had a competition, right? to get to that? >> yeah, exactly. >> finally, you've got number one for us? >> finally we have the m&ms where the brown m&m showed up to a party and the red m&m misinterpreted and got naked. >> there's some good ones, though, and made a lot of money selling these ad spots. >> i'll leave you with this, godaddy.com had universally not only the most controversial but the worst ad with danica patrick and jillian michaels. and they issued a press release

about five minutes ago saying they had record sales for websites for the dot co they were trying to sell and they had record mobile traffic. there's two things going on here. what defines if an ad is good? is an ad good if it's done well creatively or generates results? >> good point made there. thank you. madonna stole the halftime show with a dazzling performance in the big show yesterday. but it was female rapper m.i.a.'s little insult to the cameras that has everyone talking this morning. nbc released an apology after the show saying the nfl hired the talent and produced the halftime show. our system was late to obscure the inappropriate gesture, and we apologize to our viewers. hello, how can i deliver world-class service

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if the economy improves, is his reelection a lock? the u.s. closing its embassy in syria effective immediately, all personnel being removed because of ongoing violence, and americans are asked to leave the country for their own security. and the husband of a utah mother missing for more than two years kills himself and their two sons by blowing up their home. were the boys actually remembering damaging details? we'll take a look at that. richard? >> thanks, thomas. the military is changing strategy in afghanistan. switching duties to special operations forces. telling the "new york times," at the same time the u.s. is preparing to move away from the combat role there. colonel jack jacobs is an msnbc military analyst and medal of honor recipient. thanks for being here for us on this subject. is this good military strategy? >> well, a couple of years ago, general stanley mcchrystal said if we're not willing to stay at least a decade to get the job done, it's not going to get done. and so under the circumstances

not having the political will to stay there more time and spend all the resources, sure it's a good thing. focus on the things we really do well. >> and this has been in the works for a while, right? >> oh, yeah, about two years ago, the secretary of defense robert gates said that he wanted to increase the size of the complement of the military that special forces and special operations forces with the impression he wanted to replace conventional troops in southwest asia with these people who would do the really efficient kinds of military operations. >> so you have the ground forces, you have special ops, and you've got special forces. describe the differences here. >> well, special forces, green berets are trained to operate in indigenous areas and train indigenous forces to become -- that become soldiers so they can take care of their districts, make sure that they're protected so that there could be economic

activity there. >> longer term then? >> much longer term. and patrol and do some other things, as well. special operations forces, rangers, s.e.a.l.s and so on. they can do things too. their focus is on short-term, transactional exercises like getting osama bin laden, ambushes, raids and so forth, and that's the way we're using them. >> are we getting to the right mix? is this the idea here? >> i think if we're going to be focusing our attention on unconventional operations, we're not going to have the first infantry division of the first division securing huge bases for which we'll wander out on these short-range patrols. we're going to take all of those guys home. if we're going to do that, then, yes, this is the right mix. as a matter of fact, i would argue we need even more special forces and special ops. >> thank you so much, colonel jack jacobs for all that insight. today's tweet of the day,

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we're just getting some news in on how the super bowl rated yesterday. nbc news sports -- rather nbc sports saying that last night's ratings were the third highest ever. and that brings it in just behind super bowl xlv and xxi, i believe. that's 14% higher than the last nbc super bowl. so some good news for folks watching the super bowl, the big game yesterday. and celebrating 60 years on the throne. let's go down to the wire. an unbelievable moment caught on tape. you can see a stroller starting slowly rolling toward the edge of a train platform and then goes over the edge. the mom jumped down and saved

the baby. scary stuff. also in melbourne, a run away goat. this kid is fast. trying to catch her as she ran through traffic. they eventually caught the animal. now nicknamed houdini. and check out these brand new pictures of queen elizabeth released to celebrate 60 years on the throne. the queen said in a statement she was grateful for the "wonderful support and encouragement" she had received. and check out this daredevil getting ready to break the altitude record with freefall. it would take him 35 seconds to break the sound barrier traveling the speed of 690 miles an hour. and the nbc family got together for a song and dance. ♪ >> it's the era of the musical, isn't it? a lot of our nbc talent aired during last night's super bowl. that wraps up this hour of "jansing and company," she'll be

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[ laughter ] ♪ breaking news on two fronts, the escalating violence in syria forcing the u.s. to shut down its embassy and the president has just issued a new executive order on iran. then double murder/suicide, the husband of a utah mother missing for two years kills himself and their two young boys. the question is why? and how was this allowed to happen? president obama showing a clear edge over mitt romney and newt gingrich in general election match-ups as the economy improves, will it be tougher for republicans to beat president obama in the fall? and new york in a blue state of mind, their magical comeback from behind a win super bowl xlvi. we'll have the highlights for you. hi, everybody, i'm thomas roberts, thanks for watching, we have a busy monday morning, and we get straight to it. because we have major breaking ne